Broadcast Union News is a clearing center for information of interest to people working in television, film, print/electronic media, and theater. A chance for AEA, AFTRA, IATSE, IBEW, CWA-NABET, DGA, SAG, Newspaper Guild, WGA, and non-represented entertainment industry workers to share information with an eye towards improving wages, benefits, and working conditions for all.

Friday, March 30, 2012

The Newspaper Guild of New York is locked in contract negotiations with management of The New York Times. The Guild's contract expired March 31, 2011.

Brain Drain Looms Over Quality Journalism of The Times

Since the Newspaper Guild of New York began contract talks with The New York Times more than a year ago, several high-profile reporters and columnists have left the paper of record to earn significantly higher pay elsewhere.

While each journalist had his or her reasons for leaving, there’s no question that Times management’s demands to freeze employee pensions, starve the health plan for Guild-represented employees and hold raises to one percent over three years have made the world’s greatest newspaper a much less attractive place to work.

Adding insult to Times employees’ potential financial injury was a $23.7 million severance package at the end of 2011 for the company’s former CEO, capping a leadership tenure that, by any measure, was something less than triumphant.

By taking aim at their own employees, executives of The Times, which has won more Pulitzer Prizes than any other news organization, are threatening to trigger a brain drain that would compromise its unmatched standard for excellence in journalism.

The Guild is trying to not let that happen. That’s why we’ve launched this campaign to “Save Our Times.”

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Guild negotiators and more than 30 observers wait for Times management to arrive at March 26 contract talks held at Proskauer, management's law firm.

Pension Plan Would Still Be Frozen
with more 401(k) contributions instead

With nearly three dozen Guild observers looking on, Times management took a slightly less offensive approach to contract talks today by presenting a new offer that eliminated eight of its initial proposals and revised several others, including its offers on wages, health care coverage, retirement plans and the length of the workweek.

NEGOTIATIONS UPDATE

But most major proposals were unchanged: Management still wants to freeze Guild members’ pension accruals and eliminate Guild trustees from the plan; still wants to cut severance pay and buyout terms; and still wants overtime pay to be on a weekly rather than a daily basis.

Times Guild member Walt Baranger and New York Guild President Bill O'Meara chat before March 26 talks.

Times negotiators presented their revised giveback demands just after New York Guild President Bill O’Meara scolded the management representatives for the regressive proposals they have kept on the table for the past year.

“Guild members are angry over huge executive severance packages, alleged secret bonus plans and secret pension plans for top managers,” O’Meara said. “That’s against a backdrop of recent news of more than 400,000 paid digital subscribers, and paying off Carlos Slim. The picture for The Times has gotten a lot brighter – yet the people who produce the product are being treated poorly. This is not a time to have a fight with the people you need the most.”

O’Meara added that “The Guild would like to reset the negotiations in hopes of making progress.”

GUILD HEALTH PLAN WOULD BE RETAINED, BUT…

The new proposal included one significant change: Management backed off its initial demand that the jointly run Guild-Times health plan be eliminated and that Guild employees be covered instead under the nonunion employees’ medical plan, which is inferior in many ways to current Guild coverage.

However, The Times offered only a paltry additional contribution to the medical fund – one that amounts to about two-tenths of 1 percent of payroll, far short of what is needed to keep the fund healthy without more potential wage diversions from employees.

For the first time, management made an offer on wages over the course of its proposed three-year contract: no retroactive pay dating from March 31, 2011, the expiration of the contract; a 1 percent increase in the second year (2012), effective upon contract ratification; and, in 2013, a 1 percent lump sum bonus that would not be built into employees’ salaries. The company made it clear that this is a “first wage proposal.”

While maintaining its demand that the defined-benefit pension plan be frozen, the management negotiators for the first time also offered details on what they are offering in exchange: a 401(k) contribution of 3 percent of an employees’ base salary for people with less than 10 years of continuous service, and a 5 percent contribution for those with 10 years or more.

Actuaries for the Guild have estimated that nothing less than at least a 12 percent contribution would make up for the loss of future pension accruals for most people.

After originally demanding a 40-hour workweek for all employees, the company modified its proposal, reverting back to a 35-hour week with this significant addition: “The Times may schedule an employee to work up to an additional five hours under this provision, to be paid at the straight-time rate for time worked.” Coupled with the proposal that overtime be paid on a weekly and not daily basis, this language could severely impact scheduling and compensation for many employees.

This proposal does seem to provide true parity for employees currently under The Times Digital contract: They would move from a 40-hour week to 35 hours at the same rate of pay, or be paid five additional hours of straight time if management assigns them to work 40 hours.

Times negotiators also said they were willing to continue the payment of night and lobster shift differentials. The company is still seeking to significantly decrease buyout and severance payments, but it dropped its proposal to end “notice pay,” which is a payment, in addition to severance, to people who are laid off.

Members of the Guild negotiating committee will meet on Thursday for a point-by-point discussion of the new Times proposal and will consider counter-proposals.

Three dates in April have been set for more bargaining sessions with management.

Guild negotiators and observers take their seats during contract talks shortly before the arrival of management negotiators on March 26. At the table are New York Guild Secretary-Treasurer Peter Szekely (left), Guild outside counsel Irwin Bluestein and Guild President Bill O'Meara.

H.E.N.S. is holding its first Spring training workshop this Sunday around confronting capitalist oppression through an interrogation of immigration law.

The focus of this workshop will be Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA 1986) and how and why the law is an act of class war which must be undone for effective organizing to happen. There are two versions of the announcement below. Please choose whichever invitation you feel most interpolated by.Employer Sanctions Workshop

Date:Sunday April 1st, 2012

Time: 6-9pm

Place:93 3rd Ave. Brooklyn, NYC.

(corner of 3rd and Bergen)

(Take the 2,3,4,5,N,D,or R trains to Atlantic or the F,G, trains to Bergen).

What are the strategic demands for organizing across the barriers imposed by immigration law? Please join us for a discussion of employer sanctions and the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA). We will investigate how employers have used workers'

immigration status to suppress organizing efforts across a range of industries and how workers have managed to assert their rights.

Presenters will include workers of the YES car service in Queens who have successfully organized documented and undocumented workers despite violent opposition. Other presenters will include members of Chinese Staff and Workers Association and National Mobilization Against Sweatshops, immigration attorney Sonia Lin, as well as legal workers and organizers who have witnessed how immigration laws, nominally intended to target bad employers, have been used to disenfranchise workers. The meeting will include a growing coalition of organizations coming together to achieve the right to organize for all workers.

As we approach May 1st and find ways of working together across the barriers which have served to fracture working class movements, we must look closely at the structural impediments to organizing. The slogan of the May 1st Coalition, "Legalize, Unionize, Organize," must be elaborated to find concrete ways of working together beyond previous divisions of the left. The repeal of Employer Sanctions is a crucial starting point for re-invigoration of working class organizing.

Following today's post about the Times's decision to drop its proposal to extend the work week from 35 hours to 40, a Times reporter writes in to argue that the allowance is actually a "faux concession."

"Management, knowing that many of us work well more than 40 hours a week, and virtually never put in for overtime, thought, let's call their bluff," the reporter explains. "[They're thinking,] we'll officially agree to a 35-hour week, even for the digital folk, because management knows that we're so dedicated, so Type A, so hyper-competitive that whether we have a 35-hour or 40-hour week, hardly anyone is going to put in for overtime, whether we work 50 or 60 hours."

Newspaper Guild of New York President Bill O'Meara told me earlier that some reporters do file for overtime, but as the reporter points out, the provision mostly applies to copy editors and clerical staff, and many Times reporters have written in via email and Twitter to inform me that they work more than 40 hours and do not file for overtime.

The reporter's email, in full:

NYT copy editors, many of whom consider their jobs boring and painstaking, don't like having to work more than 35 hours a week, even as many of us reporters work 50 hours or more a week. Many copy editors bitterly opposed going to a 40-hour week for that reason, especially when the Times wasn't offering any offsetting increase in compensation for the long week. At the same time, the digital folks who already have a 40-hour week thought, why the hell are we oldsters complaining about going to a 40-hour week.

Some in the Guild thought, hell, if management is going to officially increase us from 35 to 40 hours, they should throw in some money -- it's insulting not to offer some financial compensation. Adding insult to increased hours, management coupled the proposed increase in hours with an offer of a three-year wage freeze. At the same time, some Guild officials took the stance -- over our dead bodies will we accept a 40-hour week, the 35-hour week was something our brothers and sisters fought for, sacrificed for and won decades ago.

So management, knowing that many of us work well more than 40 hours a week, and virtually never put in for overtime, thought, let's call their bluff -- we'll officially agree to a 35-hour week, even for the digital folk, because management knows that we're so dedicated, so Type A, so hyper-competitive that whether we have a 35-hour or 40-hour week, hardly anyone is going to put in for overtime, whether we work 50 or 60 hours.

So on paper, it looks as management made a generous concession by agreeing to a 35-hour week. But they just called our bluff and are sitting pretty. They didn't give us a thing. It was a faux concession on their part.

In an earlier email, the reporter also took issue with the "newsspeak" used to characterize another provision dropped from the Times's proposal:

When you cut through [the] "Newsspeak," the bottom line is the NYT is proposing a wage freeze in the contract's first year, a 1 percent raise in the second year and, for the third year, a 1 percent lump-sum payment, which would not become part of the wage base. It insults the intelligence to call that a bonus.

Assuming that inflation averages 2.5 percent a year over those three years, that 1 percent raise over three years would translate into a 6.7 loss in wages after factoring in inflation.

Times reporter, Michael Luo commented: No NYT reporter I know works 35 hrs. and most probably can't remember last time they filed for OT.

"EMPLOYEES OF U.S. SUBSIDIARIES OF GERMAN COMPANIES, ESPECIALLY T-MOBILE USA, SHOULD BE ABLE TO EXERCISE THEIR UNRESTRICTED RIGHT TO OPT FOR ORGANIZED REPRESENTATION IN THE COMPANY WITHOUT FEAR."

In an ad in the New York Times yesterday, 11 leading German legal scholars and politicians called on Deutsche Telekom and other German companies to stop using American-style union-hating tactics at their American subsidiaries. In particular they asked these companies to "end all collaboration with U.S. consultants who advise employers how to fight employee representation."

What is remarkable about this letter is the difference between European and American attitudes toward working people and labor rights. In Europe it's just a given that working people have dignity and respect.

To Europeans it is shocking to see a company try to fight against its own workers! In the US working people face an atmosphere of constant intimidation, always pushing for lower wages, cuts in benefits, longer working hours, and subservience.

The 11 national leaders and scholars called on Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile USA to “end all collaboration with U.S. consultants who advise employers how to fight employee representation.”

The signers include former Federal Minister of Justice Herta Däubler Gmelin, former Vice Chancellor Franz Müntefering and former Federal Minister of Defense Peter Struck.

Separately, Klaus Barthels, a Social Democratic Party leader of the German Parliament, led a delegation from Germany to the U.S., with meetings in Nashville and Frisco, Tex., with T-Mobile workers and with German embassy officials about T-Mobile USA’s intimidation of U.S. workers who want a union voice.

Just last week, T-Mobile USA announced it was closing seven call centers that employ 3,300 workers. The Company expects more restructuring that could result in the outsourcing or off-shoring of tech jobs. T-Mobile USA already has sent more than 6,000 jobs to the Philippines and Honduras. The company could have opted to return those jobs to the U.S. Instead, it is closing four call centers that employ 3,300 workers, despite having received economic development taxpayer grants in four of those locations.

Globalization and the current crisis present particular challenges for the economy. Germany's social market policy faces these challenges with its commitment to stakeholder values including employees and its responsibility towards the community.

The respect for the interests of different players has already proven to be beneficial in previous periods of change. Essential elements of this approach are respectful cooperation and a balance of the differing interests of employees and employers. Since employees are in a structurally weaker position compared to employers, the freedom of association and freedom of opinion as human rights are especially vital.

The signatories urge that the employees of U.S. subsidiaries of German companies, especially T-Mobile USA, should be able to exercise their unrestricted right to opt for organized representation in the company without fear. They must not be influenced, pressured, or intimidated by employers if they exercise their basic right for freedom of association. The human right of freedom of speech notably entails this right as well.

Even in the Federal Republic of Germany there are shortsighted employers and lawyers who believe they can get away with a lack of integrity and respect toward unions and work councils and who think they can forgo cooperation. Practical experiences and scientific studies show, however, that employer conduct based on this model will ultimately be harmful to the company.

We encourage T-Mobile USA and the other U.S. subsidiaries of German companies to take these experiences to heart and to abandon all efforts at union avoidance.

Likewise, we ask them to end all collaboration with U.S. consultants who advise employers how to fight employee representation.

Contract negotiations between the New York Times Company and its Newspaper Guild employees are continuing this week, with the Guild admitting that a new proposal is "slightly less offensive" than previously proposed cuts. The latest plan would give Guild members a one percent pay increase, keep their medical plan intact, and drop a proposal to extend the work week from 35 hours to 40. Hold on a second, any practitioner or consumer of journalism might be saying to themselves: A Times reporter is only expected to work 35 hours a week?

At Politico, Dylan Byers writes, "I'm going to walk out on the limb of opinion here — as a young reporter — and suggest that the 35-hour workweek is a pipe dream." (We follow a lot of Times writers on Twitter and they do seem to work a ton.) Indeed, the company admits, "This proposal will cost us money, especially on the digital side where eight-hour days are the norm (as they are in much of the world outside The Times) ... "

But according to the Guild president, most people who file for overtime are not editorial employees. And yet they can, too! "Many of our members routinely work more than 40 hours — mostly reporters. Some put in for the overtime, some don't," he told Politico. "But a reporter who works more than 35 hours is entitled to put in for the overtime."

Anyway, it's pocket change, he added, compared to former CEO Janet Robinson's exit package, which is worth more than $20 million ($24 Million in Fact).

From 11:30am to 1:30pm on Wednesday, March 28, 2012, members of The Newspaper Guild of New York, Local 31003, CWA, working at McGraw-Hill owned Standard and Poors, protested the outsourcing of thousands of good-paying McGraw–Hill jobs to India.

The quiet protest outside the Standard and Poors Manhattan Corporate Headquarters at 55 Water Street consisted of a rotating group of about 40 Guild members at any given point, who spent their lunch hours handing out flyers denouncing the coming layoffs and outsourcing of jobs to India.

Guild members were joined by members of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), the National Writers Union local 1983 (NWU-UAW), the New York Administrative Employees Local 1180 CWA, AFSCME 375 DC 37, and International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees TPU Local One (IATSE), as well as members of Occupy Wall Street.

McGraw-Hill CEO Terry McGraw, who sits on President Obama’s Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations, has already sent thousands of American jobs to India and despite posting a $ 911 million dollar profit in 2011(see page 31 in their 2011 annual report), intends to send thousands more McGraw-Hill jobs to his Indian facilities, including a number of Guild represented jobs at Standard and Poors.

Members of the Guild represented S & P bargaining unit

McGraw-Hill CEO, Terry McGraw

Terry McGraw made his position clear in a recent op-ed piece published in the Business Standard“we all know a more prosperous India could move us closer towards a goal everyone around the world wants: a global economy at full throttle”.

We need to let Terry know that America needs more jobs, not less. The global economy needs a fully employed United States of America with a strong middle class.

Call McGraw-Hill CEO Terry McGraw at 212-512-6205 and tell him to keep Standard and Poors jobs and all other McGraw-Hill jobs, here.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Former New York Times Co. President and CEO Janet Robinson received a payout of nearly $24 million after she was pushed out late last year, the company disclosed yesterday.

That figure — which is higher than previous estimates pegging it between $15 million and $21 million — drew fresh criticism from the Newspaper Guild, the largest union at the paper with more than 1,000 members.

The Guild has been without a contract since last March and stalled talks only resumed after Robinson’s ouster. The two sides remain far apart while the company is said to be seeking to freeze pension benefits and convert to a 401(k) plan.

“In light of this information, it is impossible to see how the Times can justify its continuing demands for severe cuts in compensation and benefits for the employees it refers to, correctly, as the world’s finest journalists,” said Bill O’Meara, the Guild’s president.

“This new, higher payout will only increase their anger,” he said, referring to guild members.

A Times spokeswoman said, “We believe in the collective bargaining process and any related questions should be addressed at the bargaining table.”

Recently, Times reporters lined the halls outside a story meeting of Executive Editor Jill Abramson and other top editors in a silent protest. Their hope was that the editors would relay the journalists’ concern over the stalled contract talks to the Times’ top brass. See video here.

*NY TIMES & NEWSPAPER GUILD OF NEW YORK IN GRITTY CONTRACT BATTLE

More than 200 members of the Newspaper Guild of New York Local 31003 gathered silently outside the New York Times Page One meeting room recently in a quiet, 10-minute display of dissent. (Video here)

Times’ employees represented by the Guild have been without a contract for almost a year, and Guild members said the protest was to show "our common dismay over contract negotiations in which management seems determined to seriously compromise our financial welfare, our access to health care and our security in retirement."

The Times’ proposed cuts come as former CEO Janet Robinson walks away with a termination package worth $24 million dollars. For more information go to:

Friday, March 23, 2012

It is my great honor to announce that Sister Cheryl Thomas has been appointed to the Executive Council of the IBEW Electrical Workers Minority Caucus. The following is from the Electrical Workers Minority Caucus Executive Committee....

Cheryl Thomas

...."Your long-standing dedication, commitment, and leadership to advance the work of our Electrical Workers Minority Caucus was recognized by every Executive Committee member. Your involvement with the EWMC began in 2004. At every subsequent EWMC conference, your leadership, participation and presence has helped the growth and influence of our EWMC."

"In addition, your many accomplishments at IBEW Local 1212 are testimony to the goals and values of our EWMC. As a member of Local 1212 for 34 years, you have done extraordinary work and service.'

"You have served on the union’s negotiating committee and as shop steward; you were elected in 1997 to the Local 1212 Executive Board and were re-elected every three years; you were elected Delegate to the IBEW’s 38th International Convention in Vancouver, Canada; and since 2010 you have served as an Assistant Business Manager to Local 1212 Business Manager Ralph Avigliano."

"These are extraordinary accomplishments of leadership and service. As a woman of color, an African American, an IBEW member dedicated to advancing our work as trade unionists, you have shown by your own example the good work of our Electrical Workers Minority Caucus."

On a personal note, I wish to thank Cheryl for her continued dedication and support to Local 1212. On behalf of all of the members of Local 1212 we send you our heart felt congratulations and best of luck in this appointment.

Product Stop Use, Inspection and Replacement Notice - Immediate Action RequiredGravitec Systems is forwarding the following safety alert released by FallTech, even though Gravitec is not a distributor of FallTech products.

FallTech has issued a product recall notice on its fall protection harnesses.

The stop use order applies to all FallTech full body harnesses featuring Quick-Connect (Bayonet Style) buckles that were manufactured between 10/12/2010 and 2/9/2012. It was discovered that the male and female halves of the buckle were improperly paired, which may result in disengagement or unfastening of the buckle while in use. Click here for details.

Gravitec Systems, Inc., offers a full range of fall protection and rescue services including training, engineering, consulting, testing and equipment sales-all designed to meet the diverse needs of our clients.

For more information about Gravitec, visit us online at www.gravitec.com or call 1.800.755.8455.

From IATSE Local One, 320 West 46th Street, New York, NY 10036-8399 USA

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Arthur Sulzberger, chairman and publisher of The New York Times, is due for a $2 million bonus if the business delivers a 1.6 percent return on invested capital and a 7.7 percent operating cash flow margin on average for 2009 to 2011.

Photo by Miguel Villagran/Getty Images

The New York Times Co’s pay structure isn’t fit to print.

The venerable U.S. newspaper group revealed a bonus structure that rewards bosses with 175 percent of their target payouts for achieving a mere 2.5 percent return on invested capital.

That’s a fraction of the company’s cost of funds, and much lower than its own previous standard. A high bar for journalists doesn’t seem to extend to management.

The latest compensation generosity was quietly disclosed on Friday, showing a keen awareness of the news cycle. The company also had the nearly $24 million pay package of departing Chief Executive Janet Robinson as headline bait. But its long-term performance plan tells another part of the story.

Top executives stood to make their full target bonuses – $2 million each for Robinson and Chairman Arthur Sulzberger – if the business delivered a tiny 1.6 percent return on invested capital and a middling 7.7 percent operating cash flow margin on average for 2009 to 2011.

They were due up to another 75 percent because the actual return was above 2.5 percent and the cash flow margin topped 9.8 percent.

Rival Gannett reported much higher cash flow margins in 2009 and 2010, but the USA Today publisher was still rightly called out by David Carr, the Times newspaper’s media reporter, for overpaying executives. And putting the return-on-capital hurdle in context, the Gray Lady’s parent company paid a whopping 14 percent interest rate to borrow money from billionaire Carlos Slim in 2009 and about 6.6 percent on bonds sold in 2010.

That suggests the Times Co rewards performance that destroys value. It’s notable that executives couldn’t live up to more rigorous expectations set in previous years.

In 2009, full payout of bonuses required a three-year average return on invested capital of 7.3 percent, over four times the hurdle in the just-disclosed plan. Back then, Sulzberger and his colleagues got zip on that metric. But they still received healthy bonuses after a 70 percent collapse in the company’s shares over four years – partly because rivals fared even worse.

When he picked apart Gannett’s pay practices, Carr wondered: “How in the world could a board, any board, justify such huge payouts to media executives at a time like this?” It’s a question the occupants of his employer’s boardroom might want to ponder.

Jeffrey Goldfarb writes about investment banking and the financial sector. Jeff joined from Reuters in London, where he oversaw European corporate finance coverage. Before that, he led Reuters' reportage on the European media sector, and previously wrote about M&A in New York. From 1993 to 2001, Jeff covered legal and regulatory news for BNA Inc. in Washington, DC, Phoenix and New York. He is a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the George Washington University.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Former New York Times Co. President and CEO Janet Robinson received a payout of nearly $24 million after she was pushed out late last year, the company disclosed yesterday.

That figure — which is higher than previous estimates pegging it between $15 million and $21 million — drew fresh criticism from the Newspaper Guild, the largest union at the paper with more than 1,000 members.

The guild has been without a contract since last March and stalled talks only resumed after Robinson’s ouster. The two sides remain far apart while the company is said to be seeking to freeze pension benefits and convert to a 401(k) plan.

“In light of this information, it is impossible to see how the Times can justify its continuing demands for severe cuts in compensation and benefits for the employees it refers to, correctly, as the world’s finest journalists,” said Bill O’Meara, the guild’s president.

“This new, higher payout will only increase their anger,” he said, referring to guild members.

A Times spokeswoman said, “We believe in the collective bargaining process and any related questions should be addressed at the bargaining table.”

Robinson’s golden parachute, which was fully divulged in the company proxy statement filed yesterday, includes a special one-time “consulting” package of $4.5 million a year, requiring no more than 15 hours of work per month.

Her pay package also includes $11.4 million in retirement income, $5.39 million in performance awards, restricted stock units valued at $1.07 million and stock options worth $694,164, according to Bloomberg.

Last week, Times reporters lined the halls outside a story meeting of Executive Editor Jill Abramson and other top editors in a silent protest. Their hope was that the editors would relay the journalists’ concern over the stalled contract talks to the Times’ top brass. See video here.

The AFL-CIO Executive Council and the IATSE General Executive Board Endorses Obama for Second Term

The AFL-CIO Executive Council, at its midwinter meeting in Orlando, Florida, voted unanimously on Mar. 13, to endorse Barack Obama for a second term as U.S. President. IATSE President Matthew Loeb, who serves on the Council, is pleased to announce that the IA General Executive Board has endorsed President Obama as well.

Upon learning of the unanimous endorsement of the AFL-CIO, President Obama called President Trumka during the Council meeting and was placed on speakerphone, so that he was able to express his gratitude to all those present.

President Obama pledged his continued support for all working people. At the top of his priority list is reclaiming middle class security, putting people back to work, protecting collective bargaining and fair labor laws, and many more issues of importance to labor unions and workers across the United States. He also noted that we in labor must be more activated now than we were in 2008. We must reclaim the House and maintain control of the Senate, or we will continue to be faced with many challenges.

The CUNY Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies

Check out the labor classes available at the CUNY Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies. There is a joint CUNY/Cornell Certificate in Employee Labor Relations program, and undergraduate Union Semester program and the MA in Labor Studies program that I finished in June 2011 . See the info at: http://www.workered.org/

The East Coast Council handles production of low-budget feature films, defined as $8 million and below. The Council represents all below-the-line production locals within the IATSE (camera, hair, makeup, props, electricians, etc.) They take a flexible approach to the crewing of productions, by reducing member wages and benefits based on deferment.

For more information about the East Coast Council, contact either of its co-chairmen, Local 600 Eastern Regional Director Chaim Kantor (212-647-7300) or Local 52 President John Ford (212-399-0980).